Kin of Chinese man seek compensation for his death from overwork+

TOKYO, Aug. 7 Kyodo -
The relatives of a Chinese man who died from heart failure last year sought
compensation at a local labor standards inspection office on Friday, claiming
that long working hours as a vocational trainee at a plating company in Ibaraki
Prefecture caused his death.

It is the first time that a case has been filed in Japan seeking compensation
for a foreign trainee's death caused by overwork, according to a group of
lawyers dealing with issues related to foreign trainees.
Jiang Xiaodong, from China's Jiangsu Province, died in his sleep in a dormitory
in June last year at the age of 31. He came to Japan in December 2005 on a
vocational training program.
He was forced to work long hours, as many as 100 hours of overtime a month, at
the plating company in Itako City, although he was not allowed to work overtime
under the training system, Shoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer representing his relatives
said.
From his second year onward, when Jiang became an apprentice, his overtime
hours increased to 150 hours with only two days off a month. He was paid
114,000 yen a month and 400 yen to 820 yen per hour for overwork.
Under the training system established in 1993, foreigners go through a year of
training and then become apprentices in their second year.
Ibusuki said Jiang was not able to resist the harsh treatment as he had handed
over around 140,000 yen to his agency in China as guarantee money, and ''feared
that he would be forced to return home and it (the agency) would take his money
away.''
His wife, Feng Zhu was quoted as saying by the lawyer that he said by phone
that he ''gets tired after working long hours,'' and that she was dissatisfied
with explanations from his agency in Japan that the plating company forced him
to work overtime only 20 hours a month.
In fiscal 2008, 34 foreign vocational trainees and apprentices died from
accidents and disease at work, the highest number on record, according to the
Japan International Training Cooperation Organization.
==Kyodo